"Could you write a terrible episode of Doctor Who?"

While on balance I think I'm enjoying the current and previous series of Doctor Who a little more than average, it's hard to disagree with any of the points raised in this take-down of recent episodes from the Daily Mash titled "Could you write a terrible episode of Doctor Who?"

Comments

Things like that are only funny if there's some truth to them. It made me laugh so you can easily work out what I think.

A serious point is that it's not good for a show to be the butt of too many jokes. As I've said before there's a real danger that Doctor Who ends up being emblematic of something that's starting to look outdated and stale. In its heyday it was emblematic of good popular TV.

Things like that are only funny if there's some truth to them. It made me laugh so you can easily work out what I think.

A serious point is that it's not good for a show to be the butt of too many jokes. As I've said before there's a real danger that Doctor Who ends up being emblematic of something that's starting to look outdated and stale. In its heyday it was emblematic of good popular TV.

That's pretty much where it ended up in the late 80s.
"Wobbly sets, dodgy monsters, overacting" etc.
It was an embarresment to the BBC - or at least Michael Grade.

The Doctor and her fam must face off against their greatest threat yet - the monstrous Chibber. Will the Doc be able to save the day as the beast roams the alleys of Sheffield, sucking the life and fun out of everything it touches. Only Ryan, with his complete lack of personality, is immune to the humiliating effects of the Chibber's power. Will the Doctor survive this encounter? Will Graham make it through the episode without being made to look like an idiot? Will Yaz have any dialogue at all? Or will the Chibber prevail and destroy history as we know it?

Everyone can write bad doctor who. The current show runners are doing a great job.

They got the basics off:
- Alienating long term viewers and demographic due to forced gender gender change
- Casting everyone based on race, age and gender over actong ability
- Making men evil or just bad people/fathers
- The doctor giving lectures constantly where it feels like she is a teacher raking them on a school trip
- Bad weak characterisation of tbe main cast
- Too many companions with stories too short and too few per series for them to get the development to grow
- Going mad with retconning and/or trapping future producers
- The Judoon episodes lack of screentime for the timelord/lady who hired the judoon and look into her motives and Jacks scenes unneeded and cramped in to where that character needed screentime. Jacks scenes could have been placed in any episode.

Following Chibnalls master class will help anyone write and produce an abomination of an era way more than a bad episode.

Could I? If I tried hard, writing deliberately poorly is a challenge, if you have even half decent writing chops. The issue that seems to be happening in the last two series is Chibnall and Co seem to have a remit to turn the show into The Return of Captain Planet and aim it strictly at small children as part of the BBC edutainment package, where the prior show runners were aiming at the general viewing public. There were aspects kids would enjoy, but their parents could watch without losing braincells too.

That being the case, they're doing a bang up job.

The more I read about Chibnall's tenure, the more I am reminded of series one and two of Torchwood, aka God's Gift to Fanfic Writers.

There were LOADS of brilliant story ideas introduced during those two series: Ianto being the most brilliant Master Planner and Manipulator to ever plan and manipulate for starters. Flat Holm, the refuge for damaged time travelers being another. Even the space whale in Meat. But the way these concepts were placed within the series and then rarely, if ever spoken of again, because stand alone episodes are where it's at, really shot early Torchwood in the foot, diminishing the impact of the over all run.

Chibnall has form. So far what has unravelled during his Doctor Who run should surprise no one.

I could go along the lines of writing a Dr Who series based 95% of the time on Earth rather than the rest of the Universe, banging on about gender, diversity, human rights & pollution, though that would ruin the whole concept of the series wouldn't it ?

All of the JM episodes have been poor, except Spyfall with was quite good and Fugitive of the Judoon which was excellent. It shows Chibbers is capable of producing decent who.

The fundamental issue is JM is just not an engaging or believable Dr and the show relies on that so much. The better episodes are in spite of, not because of, her. Even with a good Dr there would have been quite a few duffers, but several of the episodes would have been much improved with a different lead. Obviously losing Yas and Ryan would be good too as they are so dull. They compare so poorly to any of the other recent companions.

I dont mind issues being raised, but sometimes its overly preachy. It was ok in the plastic one but way too much in the awful resort one. I don't mind all the 'woke' ness of it either. I just mind that its now mostly quite boring.

The obvious solution is to swap out JM for the black lady Dr and keep only BW as the sidekick.

If I was writing an episode, I'd make sure that the exposition stuff was zilch. I'd have the companions imprisoned, interrogated, flung down a pit and mauled by the real live monsters. There would be lots of slime, blood 'n' guts, etc. There would be real sets - none of this half-arsed acting against a green screen.

The Jodie Doc would be critically injured, forcing a regeneration. And the Tardis interior would get one hell of a makeover... I'd employ that Theta Sigma bloke from Youtube as designer.

I'd be tempted to set it in a fascist state that has a full on propganda ministry that rewrites history and pumps out one sided political right winged messages to indoctrinate and educate the population. And have it end with a sermon that tells us listening to one sided messages on television programmes are is bad as is it inhabits our critical thought process.

The Daily Mash is about as left wing as it comes. It's a fine state of affairs when even they are opening mocking the politics of the show.

I'm a leftie-liberal and I happily mock the preaching currently in the show. Not because I disagree with the message, but because its terribly written and delivered with all the subtlety of a wet herring slapped across the nutsack.

The Daily Mash is about as left wing as it comes. It's a fine state of affairs when even they are opening mocking the politics of the show.

I'm a leftie-liberal and I happily mock the preaching currently in the show. Not because I disagree with the message, but because its terribly written and delivered with all the subtlety of a wet herring slapped across the nutsack.

Indeed. I’d wager that the vast majority of the show’s audience are leftie-liberals and therefore don’t really need preaching to. You’d think the writers would know that, but hey ho.

Doesn't matter if you have a list of writing awards, and have your pitches edited by Neil Gaiman. If your American, your script will be rejected and brutally.

I don't understand this. There are actual science-ficition writers who want to pitch ideas to the show, and yet someone like Maxine Alderton whose only writing credits are for **** Emmerdale manages to get to write an episode.

This absolutely blows my mind. Why is this? Can they only afford Emmerdale writers these days? Or is this a result of diversity box-ticking exercises? Or maybe this anecdote dates back to when Moffat was in charge? Perhaps now, no-one wants to write for the show under Chibnall?

Doesn't matter if you have a list of writing awards, and have your pitches edited by Neil Gaiman. If your American, your script will be rejected and brutally.

I don't understand this. There are actual science-ficition writers who want to pitch ideas to the show, and yet someone like Maxine Alderton whose only writing credits are for **** Emmerdale manages to get to write an episode.

This absolutely blows my mind. Why is this? Can they only afford Emmerdale writers these days? Or is this a result of diversity box-ticking exercises? Or maybe this anecdote dates back to when Moffat was in charge? Perhaps now, no-one wants to write for the show under Chibnall?

Yes because someone has written for a particular thing, doesn't mean they can't write a cracking story in a different genre. For example the writer of the kids move Cats and Dogs also wrote Bad Santa,

Doesn't matter if you have a list of writing awards, and have your pitches edited by Neil Gaiman. If your American, your script will be rejected and brutally.

I don't understand this. There are actual science-ficition writers who want to pitch ideas to the show, and yet someone like Maxine Alderton whose only writing credits are for **** Emmerdale manages to get to write an episode.

This absolutely blows my mind. Why is this? Can they only afford Emmerdale writers these days? Or is this a result of diversity box-ticking exercises? Or maybe this anecdote dates back to when Moffat was in charge? Perhaps now, no-one wants to write for the show under Chibnall?

I was watching the Season 26 boxset last night and the "Behind the Sofa" featurette included two Chibnall era writers. I was sceptical but Pete McTighe completely won me over with his knowledge of the show. I can't say I've ever seen one of his episodes as I don't normally watch the Chibnall era but he seems a good hire and a fan of the show in every sense. The other one though, Joy, didn't seem to know the series particularly well at all. She'd clearly seen the McCoy episodes at some point but most of her points were about how ground breaking Ace was. Two ends of the spectrum here, one hardcore fan writer, one casual fan writer - did it make a difference to their approach to the series and overall script quality? I can't say as I didn't watch but I suspect the quality of both writers work on the show had more to do with the showrunner than their individual writing credentials.

But to give them both credit, they were clearly very enthusiastic contributers to this featurette whereas Sylvester McCoy just looked a bit fed up and bored.

Doesn't matter if you have a list of writing awards, and have your pitches edited by Neil Gaiman. If your American, your script will be rejected and brutally.

I don't understand this. There are actual science-ficition writers who want to pitch ideas to the show, and yet someone like Maxine Alderton whose only writing credits are for **** Emmerdale manages to get to write an episode.

This absolutely blows my mind. Why is this? Can they only afford Emmerdale writers these days? Or is this a result of diversity box-ticking exercises? Or maybe this anecdote dates back to when Moffat was in charge? Perhaps now, no-one wants to write for the show under Chibnall?

I was watching the Season 26 boxset last night and the "Behind the Sofa" featurette included two Chibnall era writers. I was sceptical but Pete McTighe completely won me over with his knowledge of the show. I can't say I've ever seen one of his episodes as I don't normally watch the Chibnall era but he seems a good hire and a fan of the show in every sense. The other one though, Joy, didn't seem to know the series particularly well at all. She'd clearly seen the McCoy episodes at some point but most of her points were about how ground breaking Ace was. Two ends of the spectrum here, one hardcore fan writer, one casual fan writer - did it make a difference to their approach to the series and overall script quality? I can't say as I didn't watch but I suspect the quality of both writers work on the show had more to do with the showrunner than their individual writing credentials.

But to give them both credit, they were clearly very enthusiastic contributers to this featurette whereas Sylvester McCoy just looked a bit fed up and bored.

Sylvester probably realised how badly written the majority of his three years on the show was. With the exception of three maybe four stories. IMO.